Federal gov't wants access to license plate data

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Homeland Security Department is proposing that a private company give it access to a nationwide database of license plate tracking information, according to a federal contract proposal.

The department said the database would be used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help track down criminal immigrants or others wanted by authorities. The contract notice, published last week, comes amid growing concerns about government surveillance of U.S. citizens but doesn't address potential privacy consequences.

ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said Wednesday the database "could only be accessed in conjunction with ongoing criminal investigations or to locate wanted individuals."

Law enforcement has been using license plate readers for several years, but privacy advocates have raised concerns that the unchecked collection of such information could allow for the tracking of an average citizen's every movement. Lawmakers around the country, meanwhile, have been wrestling with whether or how to control the collection and use of license plate data.

At least 14 states are considering measures that would curb surveillance efforts, including the use of license plate readers.

License plate readers -- essentially cameras that snap rapid-fire pictures of license plates and vehicles as they pass -- are in use in a host of locations, by private companies and law enforcement. But it's not just the license plate number that gets recorded. The readers -- whether they are mounted to police cars, traffic lights or toll booths -- record the date, time and location of the vehicle when the picture was taken.

According to the contract proposal, the government wants "a close-up of the plate and a zoomed out image of the vehicle."

The Homeland Security Department also wants instant and around-the-clock access to the records and is asking for whoever wins the contract to make the information available through a smartphone app. It is not clear from the contract notice how long individual records would be kept or what other government agencies may have access to the trove of records.

Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney with the San Francisco-based civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said those unknowns represent serious privacy concerns.

"The base level concern is that license plate data is location data, and location data is very revealing," Lynch said. "It can tell you a lot about a person's life: where they go, who they associate with, what kind of religion they practice, what doctors they visit."

In 2012, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the collection of license plate scanner data and warned that millions of records were being collected with little or no safeguards for people's privacy.

Lynch said contract proposal is also so broad it's worrisome because of the volume of records that could accessed by the government.

"We've seen that some of these vendors have databases of millions, it not billions, of plates," Lynch said.

The government's contract proposal comes amid revelations of surveillance programs run by the National Security Agency. Privacy advocates have argued that NSA phone data collection programs and other surveillance programs are gobbling up massive amounts of information about U.S. citizens who have no ties to criminals or terrorists, which the government has said the programs are designed to target.

Classified NSA documents, leaked to news organizations, showed the NSA was collecting telephone records, emails and video chats of millions of Americans who were not suspected of a crime.